Sunday, June 15, 2008

Child porn guilty plea nets Slidell man 17 years

A 60-year-old Slidell man who coaxed neighborhood boys into posing for sexually explicit photos was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said.

Federal Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. sentenced Danny Daugherty, 1154 St. Augustine Drive, to 210 months and a lifetime of supervised release for pleading guilty Jan. 23 to three counts of production of child pornography and one count of possession.

Daugherty, a former oil engineer with Murphy Oil, was accused of owning 50,000 child pornography images on his computer, including many of the three boys ranging from 12 to 14 years old in his Caroyln Park neighborhood, Letten’s Office said. He is thought to have transported the images to oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to court records. Daugherty paid one boy $20 and gave him a hunting knife in exchange for posing, Letten said.

The series of photos included names such as “Boy on Bed,” “Boy at Kitchen Counter” and “Boy in Convertible,” according to court records.

The images came to light on May 8 last year when St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies and Slidell Police executed a search warrant at Daugherty’s home looking for stolen goods he was thought to possess.

Instead, authorities found a photo album full of child pornography pictures and a portable USB hard drive containing the majority of the 50,000 images.

Officers took custody of the computers, photo albums and portable hard drives and contacted the FBI’s Innocent Images Task Force to obtain a federal search warrant for the computer equipment.

The defendant was eventually taken into custody after numerous backup units arrived. He has been in federal custody since his arrest.

In addition to the 17-year sentence, Daugherty must also pay the three boys $20,000 in restitution for pain and humility, give a DNA sample, register as a sex offender, never own a computer or television with internet access, and have no unsupervised contact with minors under the age of 18, according to Letten’s office.